


Cloudbusting

by winwinism



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Everyone Is An Asshole, M/M, Organized Crime, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:46:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23241184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winwinism/pseuds/winwinism
Summary: Presumed dead after a year of radio silence, Winwin returns to gang running District 127 with fresh scars and new secrets.
Relationships: Dong Si Cheng | WinWin/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 10
Kudos: 53





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content warnings for this chapter:** violence (like, one punch), blood, recreational drug use, homophobia.

Rain drums a steady rhythm against the windowpane at Yuta’s back, flickering streetlamps and faint neon filtering blearily into the study. The old grandfather clock ticks halfway through the afternoon, but it may as well be night for all the sunlight that makes it down here, through stormclouds and smog and simple obstruction. A singular lightbulb dangles above the roundtable at the center of the study, shedding yellow light as Yuta whittles away at the lump of wood in his hand. 

_Snick_ , _snick_. The knife slips over another irregular bump, just missing Yuta’s thumb. He curses. The thing in his hand hardly resembles a bird, let alone a dove; evidently, his knife-wielding talents lie strictly elsewhere. 

Yuta hasn’t seen a live bird in ages. But he doesn’t think a reference would help, looking over the wooden bird’s bulging lumps and the puny orb of its head. He sighs, brushes the shavings into the wastebasket at his feet. Restlessness makes a man waste his time on all sorts of stupid, useless things, apparently. 

And he’s got nothing but time to waste--the District’s been sleepy lately, fewer errant noises at night, fewer complaints, Doyoung’s barked orders coming more rarely. Like things have finally settled down. Or, more likely, like the calm while a storm gathers its energy. 

As if the universe wishes to reward Yuta for his wisdom, sudden shouts of alarm snap Yuta out of his reverie. Out front, in the barbershop. He pockets the whittling knife and lump of wood and all but jumps to his feet, hands instinctively going to the leather hilts at his belt as he pulls the study door a cautious inch ajar. Heavy footsteps slam down the hallway. Youngho passes by the study without noticing Yuta’s presence, headed for the shop. His face is cold, set with wariness. Yuta follows without making a sound. 

He tails Youngho into the storeroom and no sooner lets the door swing behind him that the one opposite, with its Employees Only warning emblazoned across the front, bursts open. In stumbles Doyoung, and in his fist is the collar of a tall, horribly familiar man’s shirt. 

Doyoung thrusts the intruder towards the table at the center of the room--the one where they take their breaks from shop duties and cut deals--and watches him crash into it with a sneer. The man’s injured, weakened somehow, so he stumbles and catches his upper body on the surface, arms scrabbling outward for support. The table skitters forward, knocking over a bucket of soapy water and a mop with one of its legs. The water seeps out beneath their feet. No one--not Yuta or Youngho or the others who hurried over before them--acknowledges it. 

“Look who the rain brought in,” Doyoung says. Spits, more like. The door creaks open behind him. Jungwoo steps in, expression mild as ever, then unties his black barber’s apron and hangs it on one of the hooks by the door. They won’t be taking any more patrons for the day. 

Yuta hardly registers it. His eyes are glued to the man on the table, heart climbing higher in his throat with every passing second. 

Doyoung slams his foot into the back of the man’s thighs, and he shunts forward with a groan. He rolls onto his back with a whimper of pain, lifting his butt onto the table and edging away from the dark look in Doyoung’s eyes. 

No--it can’t be. But it’s obvious. Doyoung would never look so incensed, would never lose his cool like this if it weren’t. 

“Bastard,” Doyoung hisses. “Strutting in here like you own the place.” 

Yuta has dreamed of this exact scenario too many times to count. But in his dreams, Winwin looks the same as he had the day he left. 

Guy’s a mess, now. His hair is long, tawny brown wet to black and tied in a ponytail at the base of his neck. His shirt is soaked to near translucence, and below rolled-up sleeves, his forearms are riddled with angry red blotches characteristic of exposure to toxic rains. He sniffles through a bloody, quite possibly broken nose, streaks of crimson smearing and drying across his face, and rapidly blinks a purpling right eye. 

Yuta might hardly recognize him, if he didn’t know him so well. Used to, anyway. Skies know what he’s been up to. 

“Did you do this to him?” 

Taeyong announces his presence without inflection. He folds his arms where he stands in front of the towel rack, and stares at Winwin with a stony expression. 

“Didn’t have to,” Doyoung tells him. “Came like this.” 

“Shit,” Youngho breathes at Yuta’s side. He’s also staring--they all are. “A year. A fuckin’ year.” 

“That’s right.” Doyoung lifts his chin, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides until he relents and crosses his arms, too. He won’t punch Winwin--he’s never been much of a bruiser, has always flinched away from breaking bones to make a point--but he looks damn tempted. “Fucking skiv. Whoever got to you should’ve finished you off.” He spits, and it lands somewhere on Winwin’s wet clothes. “Might make you wish they had.”

Winwin’s chest heaves from his perch on the table, but he doesn’t respond. 

“Well?” He jabs the sole of his boot at Winwin’s shin, which earns him an aborted whimper. “Got anything to say for yourself?”

For a long moment, there’s only Winwin’s ragged breath and the distant patter of rain. Then he speaks, smacking cracked lips before he does. 

“Barber’s pole is broken,” he says in a hoarse, oddly nasal voice. “Looks...unprofessional.”

His voice, weathered as it sounds, erases the last traces of doubt from Yuta’s mind. Unless he’s got a twin scuttling around in the Dregs, that’s him. The man, the myth, the legend, who skipped out on the gang a year ago and didn’t look back--until now. 

Doyoung punches him. He rears back and grunts in a way that would be embarrassing for any bruiser worth his salt, landing a weak blow to Winwin’s jaw. Weak is enough, though, for Winwin’s already-brittle condition, and his head snaps to the side whip-fast as he collapses back onto his elbows. 

“He’s right,” Taeyong says drolly. “Moon’s been dragging his heels getting to it.”

Doyoung shoots a look at Taeyong that teeters on insubordination, or would if he was anyone else. “Some nerve you have,” he grits out, snapping his eyes back to Winwin, “speaking of _professionalism_.” 

He raises his fist to punch him again, but someone grabs him by the arm before he can. Jaehyun holds him back easily, looking almost bored by the effort. 

“You’ll break your hand,” he says. Doyoung sniffs.

“You do it, then.”

Yuta has no doubt he will. Jaehyun’s their biggest strongarm, even more terrifying than Youngho when he gets in his groove. But Jaehyun only looks blandly over at Winwin and curls his lip. 

“Nah. Don’t feel like it.”

And that’s the thing--he has to _feel_ it before he’ll break anyone’s arm. Donghyuck calls it going beast mode; Doyoung calls it being an inconsistent flake. Here, though, Jaehyun’s reluctance takes Yuta by surprise. 

This only fans the flames of Doyoung’s fury. “Why the _fuck_ not?” 

Jaehyun eyes Winwin for a long moment before he answers. “He’s already taken a beating.” He releases Doyoung’s arm and meets his gaze head-on. “You want him dead, or do you want him to talk?”

Doyoung’s lip stiffens. Jaehyun’s got a point, but nothing about Winwin really screams near-death. “Getting knocked around a bit won’t _kill_ him.” He doesn’t press the issue, though, nodding towards Winwin. “Talk, then. Who brought you here? Or did you drag your rotten hide back here of your own will?” 

Winwin swallows. Yuta traces the lift of his throat, still locked in disbelief that he can feel down to his fingernails. He’s real. He’s here. “My own will,” he croaks.

“Why? Couldn’t handle it out there? Got bored?”

Winwin lifts his chin, almost dismissive despite his vulnerable position. “Got what I wanted.”

“Got what?” 

Winwin doesn’t speak. Doyoung’s eyes flick towards Jaehyun, but Taeyong interrupts before Doyoung can demand more roughhousing. 

“You said you went undercover,” Taeyong says, unhurried, in a voice made of velvet. “Was that true?” 

“Course it was,” Winwin says. 

Doyoung scoffs. Yuta feels like his heart might thrum straight out of his chest. Winwin did say that in the days leading up to his disappearance--but it seemed like such a thin excuse for something else, so obviously false, that he’d almost forgotten it. 

They’re a gang. District thugs, cobbled together out of necessity. Not spies or something more complex and sinister that would require things like _going undercover_. 

“Where to?” Taeyong asks. 

More silence. 

“Fucking answer him, you prick--”

Taeyong holds up a hand. “Dons.” 

Apparently, there are still some lines Doyoung won’t cross with their leader. He deflates, pressing his lips together in a thin line. 

A moment passes, tense like a rubber band pulled taut. “Tell me something first,” Winwin decides. Doyoung exhales through his nose. 

“Alright,” Taeyong relents. “What?” 

Winwin raises a shaky hand and points a long, thin finger at Jungwoo. “Who the _fuck_ is that?”

Shit, Yuta thinks, and he could laugh if this were all retrospective and not something very _real_ happening in front of his eyes. He’s still a crazy son of a bitch. One year didn’t change that. 

“Him?” Jaehyun says, at the same time he resumes his iron grip on Doyoung’s arm. Doyoung hisses through his teeth, but Jaehyun pays no mind. “That’s Snoopy. He cuts hair.” 

Jungwoo brightens under the attention, and he smiles pleasantly. “Among other things.”

It’s Winwin’s turn to scoff. “Don’t make me gag. His _real_ name.”

Yuta can only stare in awe at his gall. Then, to his surprise, Jungwoo steps forward and bows slightly. Which is well-considered, as Winwin is his senior in the gang, after all--if he’s even still a member. “Jungwoo. Pleasure to make your acquaintance. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Jungwoo’s eyes slide over to Yuta, which is bad. His face flares red-hot as Winwin glances towards the object of Jungwoo’s attention, meeting his eyes for a single breath. 

“I still don’t know _your_ real name, though,” Jungwoo goes on, in that strange, soft voice he reserves for the strangest of occasions. “It feels a little...unbalanced.” 

Winwin’s hands curl atop the table. “Winwin,” he says. “Realest one I’ve got.” 

“Piece of shit might be more apt,” Doyoung takes the opportunity to snap.

Winwin’s gaze whips back to Doyoung. He sniffs, lightly, and looks as though any traces of fear have drained away. In fact, he looks right at home. “Dons. How I’ve missed you.” 

Taeyong clears his throat. “You got your answer. Now talk,” he drones, a threat beginning to surface under the velvet. 

“I’m sorry,” Winwin says, not sounding sorry at all. “It was a bluff. I can’t talk.” 

“Bull _shit_ ,” hisses Doyoung. 

“You can’t?” Taeyong wonders. “Or you won’t?” 

“Is there a difference?” Winwin fires back. 

“The difference,” Taeyong says, tapping his jaw as if in contemplation, “is slight. If you _can’t_ talk, and are under some threat that will become a danger to us, then you will be necessarily thrown out of the District. If you _won’t_ talk, but might eventually, given some, hmm, shift of circumstances, your tentative acceptance could be possible.” 

Winwin looks back at Taeyong without blinking. Yuta stares, too, mentally unwinding Taeyong’s words. As ass-backwards as it sounds, it makes sense. 

“Tentative acceptance,” Doyoung says, and the words drip with venom. “For what? His loyal service?” 

Taeyong shrugs. “If he didn’t want to rejoin us, he wouldn’t have walked through that door. Simple as that.” 

“Not the only possibility, Boss,” says another voice. Minhyung emerges from the shadows, scowling down at Winwin. “Could mean to infiltrate our ranks. Pull some shit.” 

“Nothing he couldn’t have done from the outside,” Taeyong reasons. “He’s been in our ranks long enough.”

Minhyung’s words give Yuta pause, though. Through the maelstrom of shock and other feelings he can’t put a name to, Yuta admits with aching reluctance that he doesn’t know what Winwin is up to, that he _can’t_ trust him. Taeyong’s being entirely too lenient. Luckily, he doesn’t have to say it. 

“You and Yoonoh,” Doyoung says, indignant, “what are you, in cahoots? Are you _trying_ to fuck us all over?” 

Taeyong narrows his eyes. “You’d sooner throw an asset out onto the streets? Make damn sure he has a reason to turn on us?” He steps forward and braces his hands onto the table, boring into Winwin’s impassive glare with only inches between them. “Let’s be hospitable, yeah? Someone can keep an eye on him.” He looks up, past Winwin’s shoulder towards Yuta. No way. “Neko,” he purrs. “You’ll keep him out of trouble, won’t you?”

Six pairs of eyes turn on him. Not Winwin’s, or those of the two knuckleheads who didn’t show up (Yuta doubts they even heard anything, down there). Yuta gulps. 

He couldn’t stop Winwin from leaving before. He doubts he could now, even if he put his mind to it. But he can’t very well say that, can he? 

“Sure thing, Boss.” His voice doesn’t crack. Comes out a little tighter than normal, but it doesn’t crack. 

“Mad Dog,” Doyoung laughs, “you really are mad.” 

Taeyong cracks a smile, one that evaporates a second after exposure to air. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” He turns his attention back to Winwin. “So, Winwin. What’ll it be?” 

As the least senior member of Taeyong’s crew, Jungwoo gets the dubious honor of patching up Winwin’s wounds. He pats him down first, has Winwin T-pose while he checks for weapons and contraband. There’s nothing. He strolled into the District with naught but the clothes on his back. 

Now, Winwin sits in a chair that creaks under his weight as Jungwoo wipes the blood off of his face with a damp washcloth, groans when he bandages his (now obviously broken) nose. Yuta stands sentry by the storeroom door, arms crossed and not speaking. None of them do. The others, meanwhile, have made themselves scarce. 

Winwin breaks the silence as Jungwoo starts to rub a synthetic aloe salve into the rashes on his arms. “Moon and Haechan still around?” 

Yuta waits. Jungwoo doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even give an indication he’s heard him. So that’s how it’s going to go. 

“Yup,” Yuta says, and is immediately bowled over by the realization that _that’s_ the first thing he says to Winwin in a year. Not _where the fuck were you_ or _are you fucking crazy_ or _I thought you were dead_. Just _yup_. 

Winwin glances sideways at him. Something in his expression relaxes, somewhat, though he’s still stiff under Jungwoo’s touch. He sits as ramrod straight as ever, any pain from the broken nose--and the salve, which stings raw skin like a bitch--notwithstanding. 

“They here now?” Winwin asks. Jungwoo shifts to rub salve over his other arm. 

“Yup,” Yuta says again without thinking, then curses himself. Surely _yup_ isn’t the only thing he can say to him, after all this time. Surely he had some other things in mind, even if he can’t recall them now for the life of him. “Holed up the basement. I’ll show you.”

“Why the basement?” 

“Said I’ll show you.” Taeil’s latest fixation is almost too ridiculous for words. But maybe Winwin won’t be impressed. Could’ve seen anything between now and last spring, done things the poor schmucks here in District 127 can only imagine. 

“Fine.” Winwin sags into his chair a little, wood creaking with the slight movement. Outside, the rain seems to have stopped. Yuta can’t hear it, anyway. 

Jungwoo pats Winwin’s arm when he’s finished. “All done,” he says sweetly, standing. “Er, well. You can manage the rest.” 

Jungwoo glances at Yuta, then looks pointedly at the bottle of salve. Judging by the state of Winwin’s clothes, he probably has rashes elsewhere. The rains down here in the Dregs are harsh, and Yuta can only speculate how long Winwin’s been wandering around, exposed to the elements in clothes hardly suited for them. 

“Thank you, Jungwoo,” Yuta says, when it becomes apparent that Winwin isn’t going to. Jungwoo inclines his head towards him, lips curving, and pads out of the storeroom without a second look. Then they’re alone. 

Winwin groans and cranes his neck back, staring at the ceiling. “My clothes still here?”

“No,” Yuta admits. His whole wardrobe got pawned off after two weeks. “You can borrow some of mine.” 

Winwin peers down the bandaged bridge of his nose at Yuta. “Do I even have a bed?” 

Also no. “Where do you think Snoopy sleeps?” 

Winwin actually rolls his eyes at that. He straightens his neck, then braces his hand on the table to pull himself up, making a pained noise at the effort. “Can’t keep a single spare?” he grumbles. 

They could. Maybe. They keep an exceptionally tight belt around here--it’s Taeyong’s way of running things. Even so, their savings aren’t much. “There’s bedrolls in the attic. You’ll be in my room, anyway.” 

“Of course,” Winwin sniffs. “You being my babysitter and all.”

Winwin limps for the showers at the back end of the house once he’s ascertained that Yuta isn’t going to stop him. Yuta doesn’t blame him. Can’t be too comfortable, wearing clothes soaked through with acid rain.

“Don’t get your bandages too wet,” Yuta warns him. “I’m not redoing them.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Winwin mutters. 

Yuta trails after him warily as Winwin pulls the tie out of his hair and shakes it out like a wet dog, pulling fingers through the tangled strands. He thinks only belatedly to throw a towel after him, and does so, Winwin accepting it with an appreciative _humph_ ; and then Winwin’s elbowing his way into the showers and letting the door thunk shut in his wake. 

Yuta hadn’t been holding his breath, but he lets out a long one anyway, feeling like he had. 

He tips his head back against the wall, crossing his ankles while he waits next to the entrance. Wet clothes slap against tile floor. There’s a loud protest from one of the knobs, then running water. Yuta closes his eyes. 

“Yuta?” He peels one open. Doyoung emerges from the latrines at the opposite end of the hallway and sizes him up with a frown. “The fuck are you doing?”

Yuta jerks his head towards the showers. “Keeping watch.” 

Doyoung’s eyes are wide, incredulous. “Then, I don’t know, do that?” 

“Man can’t shower by himself?”

“No,” Doyoung says. He walks slowly past him, pounding a friendly fist on the shower door as he goes. “You watch him until we know his whole fucking deal. Every last bit of it.”

Well, then. That shouldn’t take long at all.

Doyoung’s eyes prickling at his back, Yuta swallows and pushes open the door. There’s spray of freezing shower water mists the air, and he shivers.

“Don’t mind,” Yuta calls, keeping his eyes lowered. “Just following orders.” There’s an old stool with peeling grey paint and spots of mold in the corner; he makes a beeline for it, stepping over Winwin’s wet clothes. Winwin doesn’t acknowledge him, which is well and good enough.

He props his elbows on his knees, stares at his twiddling thumbs. Really, though they’ve all seen each other naked before. There’s no modesty to preserve. Yuta’s making this weirder than it needs to be--in his head, that is. 

He lifts his eyes, curiosity winning out. Winwin’s facing away from him. His hair falls to his shoulder blades, and water runs in fat rivulets down a myriad of blue-yellow bruises along the curve of his back. Winwin turns a little, tipping his head back into the stream, and Yuta hisses aloud. His whole ribcage is banged up, and a pink scar the width of a thumb marbles his waist. He’s thinner, too, than when he left. His hip bones jut out in a way that didn’t before. 

Yuta looks down, lest Winwin take notice. He exhales through his nose. Not like he doesn’t have a reason to look. He _is_ keeping watch. 

He steals another glance. Winwin’s working soap through his hair, eyes shut. His expression is serene, soft despite his injuries. Yuta’s gaze dips, feels his throat twist strangely over Winwin’s collarbones and dismisses the feeling as quickly as it arrives--and then he sees it. 

Winwin’s left pec--the space over his heart--is smooth and unblemished. 

Yuta blinks. Narrows his eyes. No, that can’t be right. Winwin turns again and removes his chest from view, but there’s no mistaking it. The District 127 brand is gone. The skin where it should be is spotless, as if it was never burned into his flesh. 

Yuta feels something like panic rising in his throat and tamps it down with another slow exhale. Okay, maybe Winwin has some unaccounted-for twin. But he knew where to find the showers. Knew their code names, their faces--alright. That’s Winwin. Unmistakeably. Yuta can’t explain it. 

He drums his fingers over his knuckles and waits as the water peters out and Winwin towels himself off. Then he stands, clapping his hands on his thighs as he does so, and faces Winwin, firmly not pitying over the man’s bare, bruised expanse of chest. 

He jerks his head towards the door instead, says, “C’mon. I’ll lend you some clothes.” 

Absent-footed, his shoe squelches on the now-sopping button-down Winwin had worn in. Oops. He dons a semblance of cool as he winds down the hall with a towel-skirted Winwin at his heels, knocking and ducking through the low threshold of his quarters when he reaches them. The knock is a joke. His room is the size of a generous closet, and he lives alone. Until now, anyway. 

Yuta’s drawers are tucked under the raised bunk of his bed, and he roots through them for some clothes he doesn’t mind docking from his weekly outfit rotation. He doesn’t have much. He wordlessly tosses his least embarrassing pair of boxers, a long-sleeved shirt, and pants that have always been a little long on him at Winwin, who hovers by the still-open door. Winwin catches them in his fist dutifully. Yuta straightens, nods towards the threshold. 

“Lock that for me, will you?”

Winwin blinks between him and the door, but complies. He’s so guarded, Yuta thinks, like he was when they first met. 

No. Not like they first met. He had an air of innocence, a spot of naïveté even if it was buried ten layers deep. He doubts he could find it now. 

Yuta takes a step towards him, then another. Winwin’s eyes are swollen and red-veined and bruised, but they regard him with an ocean of calm. He tips his chin up minutely when Yuta steps into his personal space, emphasizing their difference in height. 

“Your brand,” Yuta says quietly. He jabs a finger out before Winwin can dodge it, touching his damp skin with the pad for a moment before drawing it back. Winwin flinches on command. “Where is it?”

Winwin peers down at his chest as if it belongs to someone else. “Ah. I’d almost forgotten.”

“ _Where_ ,” Yuta repeats, and Winwin looks back up at him. 

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move a facial muscle. Irritation surges over Yuta in a shock. 

“Gonna take your sweet time giving us answers, huh?” Yuta says with a quiet fury. “Well, I’ve waited all year.”

“Mad Dog said I could,” Winwin says in an equal hush. Yuta squeezes his fists at his sides. He wants to grab him by the shoulders. Shake him until he talks.

“You think he’d have given you that if he knew?” Yuta pulls closer, nods up at him to meet his gaze head-on. “What if I tell him? You’ll be thrown out. Whacked. Worse.”

“Would you, though?” Winwin asks. And Yuta stiffens. His fists unfurl, clench around nothing. 

“I would in a heartbeat,” he hisses, but it’s paper-thin. Winwin huffs through unnaturally-puffed lips. 

“You’re a really shitty liar, Yuta.”

And that--his real name, spoken so rarely even by his comrades--makes his irritation flare white-hot for a split second before it flows out in his next exhale, like depressurized steam. His breath makes the long flyaways on Winwin’s face flutter. 

“Don’t test me,” he says eventually. His legs quaver with indecision, but he takes a step back. Away from Winwin’s body heat. It’s weird in a way he can’t explain. Too much. He swallows away the horrible knowledge that Winwin is right, dead fucking on the way he always is, and says, “The fuck is up with the hair, anyway?”

Winwin’s eyes bore back into him for another distended moment. _Weak_. Then they narrow with the suggestion of a smile. “Just trying something different.” 

Yuta sits atop his bunk with fists pulled across his chest, staring up at the ceiling as Winwin changes in his periphery. He catches Winwin’s dick flopping into his boxers and thinks, _I’m being punished_. Maybe a year ago, this would be cute. No--two years, more like. Things got weird in the weeks leading up to his disappearance, even the months. Yuta thought it was all in his head. He’s since learned to trust his instincts. 

“Moon and Haechan,” Winwin says, slinging his discarded towel over the room’s sole chair. “You said you’d show me.” 

Yuta slides off of the bed with a plop. “I did say that.” Touring Winwin around is the last thing he wants to do, presently; but he’s doomed to hang out with him either way, so he musters up enough enthusiasm for a painfully-fake grin. “You’ll never guess.”

“Not drugs, is it?” Yuta laughs. 

“That’s only the side gig.”

Winwin tails after him, creaking slowly down the stairwell into the bowels of the house. The walls turn from wood to concrete once they sink underground, the incandescent bulbs strung atop their perimeters leading them through a short, dank hallway. He knocks on the door at the end of it, calls, “Brought you guys a friend.”

No response, though he does catch a staticky crackle of music. He opens the door. Its hinges scream, and upon its opening the pair of them receive a gentle breeze of stale ganja smoke and sweat. The music is something slow, jazzy, and horribly ancient. 

Adjusting to the yellow mood lighting, Yuta spies Taeil strewn over the moth-eaten flannel couch like the subject of an old painting, his fingers resting over his lips. There isn’t a joint between them. He’s just resting them there, contemplative. Donghyuck is surprisingly, though perhaps towards Yuta’s good fortune, _not_ in Taeil’s lap--Yuta finds him by the record player on the opposite end of the room, laying among a nest of blankets with a fat book tipped open across his knees. 

Yuta doesn’t have to fake his cough. The oxygen percentage in this room is probably in the single digits. “One of these days you two are going to suffocate down here, and no one is going to care.”

Taeil’s eyes drift towards him. “Looking forward to it, man.” Then his brow furrows, and his hand falls away from his face. “Waaaait.” 

Winwin steps out from behind him. Yuta smirks, like this is something to be smug about. “Missed out on his grand return.”

Taeil swings his legs off of the armrest and ambles towards them, which is about as upright as Yuta’s seen him in a week. “Winwin? No fuckin’ way. Looking rough, dude.”

Yuta peers sidelong at Winwin to watch him blink--and then something like a smile curves his lips. “Thanks.” Not wasting time with pleasantries, Winwin nods instead towards the vast, obvious workbench at the center of the room, strewn with thin plates of metal and peeled-apart wiring. “What’s all this?”

Taeil grins back at him with yellowed-out teeth. “That’s my baby.”

“His current pet project,” Yuta interprets. “The obsession du jour.” 

Taeil steps back to glide his hand over the table’s edge, looking down at its contents with sickening fondness. “Just some tinkering I’ve been doing.”

 _At expense of every other gang-related duty_ , Yuta thinks to add. But he doesn’t get a chance to say it, because Winwin notices something and and freezes, takes a stuttering step back. 

“No way,” he says, voice shaky. “You can’t--that’s--”

“A cop drone?” Taeil fills in. His smile is pleasant, blandly reassuring. “Don’t worry. It crashed itself. Pure roadkill.” He runs a finger over the edge of a dismembered metal wing, the black shape of it recognizable to any Dregs dweller with eyes. “They don’t know what I’m doing to it.”

Winwin’s eyes are still wide and wary, but some of the tension bleeds out of his posture. “O-okay. If you say so.”

Yuta can sympathize. It was how they all reacted, the day Taeil brought the thing home. Said it was dead to the world, that Central wouldn’t know if he pulled it apart to see how it worked. It’s been weeks edging on months, and he hasn’t gotten any close to putting it back together, but, well. At least he’s eating. 

Winwin’s gaze wanders to Donghyuck’s curled form as if on cue. The boy--man, more like, but Yuta can’t help still thinking of him that way--has abandoned his book and is staring at the three of them without expression.

“Haechan,” Winwin greets mildly. He dips his head. Donghyuck glowers back. It draws out long enough to feel awkward, though no one--save for Yuta, who fidgets--seems to mind it. 

Finally, Winwin turns back towards Yuta.

“I think I get it,” Winwin says, to which Yuta could just about laugh. “Can we eat? I’m starving.”

The idea is like a beam of sunshine on a cloudy day. “We absolutely fucking can,” he assures him, and tells Taeil, “You’re not invited. I don’t want you stinking up the whole house.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream,” Taeil says. He and Winwin share another slight smile, and Yuta thinks with all the bitterness he can muster, _fuck him_. 

Yuta boils a block of instant ramen in a beat-up, dented old pot while Winwin sits, hands folded, at the table by the kitchen window. It’s his first day back, Yuta figures as he pours in precious shrimp seasoning. And--Yuta peels off another glance at him--Winwin hardly looks as though he’s been eating well. They can spare a luxury or two. 

“Learned to cook yet?” Yuta asks over his shoulder. He turns off the heat, blows over a hot spoonful before tasting it. When Winwin doesn’t answer, he looks back, incredulous. “What, even that’s classified?”

“Terribly,” Winwin says. Yuta rolls his eyes. He pours out two bowls and brings them to the table, but stops before placing them at their spots, savoring Winwin’s pleading look. 

“Tell me one thing,” he says. He steps out of reach of Winwin’s desperate swipe, sloshing broth over the rims. “Just one. And not a lie.”

“The sky is blue,” Winwin says. Yuta scowls.

“You’re lucky I’m hungry, too,” he says as he sets the bowls down. Winwin digs in with slurping abandon, firey red broth trickling down his chin and onto his shirt. Yuta attacks his own more modestly; seeing Winwin’s lack of restraint makes him want to be more careful, anyway. 

He finds himself pausing between mouthfuls, and he keeps looking at Winwin. His bandages are a wreck, his hair a tangled mess; he’s black-eyed and--now that Yuta takes a closer look--bleeding from one nostril, having somehow dislodged the scab in his furor. 

“Your nose, dude,” Yuta warns him, before blood drips in Winwin’s last spoonfuls of soup. (Yuta doesn’t want to confirm that he’d drink it down anyway.) Winwin looks downward, as if he could see up his own nose, then dabs at the blood with Yuta’s proferred napkin. He pinches it there lightly and finishes eating as if nothing is amiss. 

Yuta tries not to let his ramen go cold, but the surreality of the situation crashes over him again and again, insistent until he pauses to acknowledge it. He watches Winwin, thinks, _I’m supposed to, anyway_ , and watches him some more. 

Winwin finishes in a few final gulps and loudly sighs his satisfaction, then meets his gaze with a bemused blink.

“What?” he asks. Yuta doesn’t have an answer. 

Yuta assigns him dish duty, and Winwin limps to it, pouting in a way that shouldn’t be possible with a split lip. 

“So, is that all Moon does now?” Winwin says as he sponges over the pot with great, lethargic movements. “Work on his drone and smoke weed?”

“Yup,” Yuta confirms. If Winwin is surprised that Taeyong allows the drugs, he doesn’t show it. 

“Does he still do the books?”

“Hell no. That’s Haechan’s job.”

Winwin stops scrubbing and turns on him. “Really?”

“Really,” Yuta echoes, putting a little condescension into it. “You know, it’s been a year. Things change.”

Winwin brow wrinkles. “He’s a runner.”

“Was. You wanna know what happened?” Yuta crosses the kitchen to stand beside him, braces his hands against the counter as he leans into Winwin’s space. He hears Winwin’s breath catch, draws out the suspense for a long moment. Then he presses back. “Fuck you.” 

Winwin’s expression flattens. He turns back to the sink, resuming his motions. “Okay.”

“Tit for tat, motherfucker,” Yuta says unnecessarily. He’s clinging to this small victory, though he knows he’ll cave soon enough. 

Winwin keeps pressing anyway. “They hang out a lot, now?”

Yuta snorts. “ _A lot_. You could say that.” He sneers, adds, “You know they’re sleeping together?” 

Winwin flicks his eyes over at him for a moment. “How sweet.”

“ _Fucking_ , Winwin. Don’t you think that’s disgusting?”

Winwin shakes the water from their dishes and sets them out to dry on the ratty old towel beside the sink. “I’ll let you know when I start to care.”

Yuta doesn’t expect that. He raises an eyebrow; but Winwin only meets his eyes after he’s finished his task, all expression so thoroughly schooled away that Yuta almost feels chastised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a [Twitter](https://twitter.com/winwinism). If you want to see more of this story, please leave a comment saying so!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content warnings:** more blood, strong violence mention, generally amoral gang behavior.

As is ritual, Yuta cleans his knives in the evening. He does it even on days he doesn’t use them, which is most--the threat of their existence is almost always their primary benefit. He likes the mirror shine. It’s a vanity thing. 

He wipes them with a spritz of polish solution and a rag in the corner of the common room, half-watching Winwin nod off on the cracked-leather couch. Jaehyun lounges on the seat cushion adjacent, disinterestedly watching an old cartoon crackle across the glass bulb of the television. He seems all too casual about this whole ordeal, one arm slung behind the couch behind Winwin’s head. Maybe he thinks he and Winwin will go back to being buddies. Crazy idea. 

Movement in his peripheral brings Yuta’s attention to the doorway. Minhyung’s stopped just in front of it, not entering but not walking past either. His eyes are trained on Winwin, stiff with thinly-veiled hostility. 

“At ease, man,” Yuta says. Minhyung glances over at him. 

“You stay vigilant,” he warns after a moment. “He’ll walk through walls if you aren’t looking.” 

Yuta snorts. “Don’t be ridiculous.” 

“It’s a metaphor.”

“Oh? And here I thought you were still superstitious.”

Minhyung works his jaw, then steps over the threshold to draw to Yuta’s side. “Be serious.” He looks sidelong at where Winwin’s head spills back over the couch cushions, hair askew and eyes shut. “He’s planning some shit,” he says, voice low. “I expect we’ll know what soon enough, but you can’t let him drag us into it.”

“Me?” Yuta frowns as he examines his distorted reflection in the sheen of one blade. “You mean _we_ , I should hope? And what makes you so sure?”

“Why else would he come back? Because he missed us so fucking much?”

“I don’t know.” Yuta sheathes the blade at his belt, looks up at Winwin’s prone form with a sad twist in his stomach. “Maybe he ended up somewhere worse.”

Mark scoffs quietly. Yuta senses some tacit agreement that Winwin would never be that stupid. He wouldn’t just _end up_ somewhere he couldn’t handle. 

But whether having a good head on your shoulders can keep you from being swallowed up by the Dregs--Yuta shrinks away from that train of thought. He won’t throw a pity party until he knows Winwin deserves one. 

So he stands ungracefully, not thanking Minhyung for his wisdom before he strolls over to the couch, earning himself a mild glance from Jaehyun. He jabs the blunt handle of his other trusty blade into Winwin’s shoulder.

“Get up,” he says as Winwin cringes out of his nap, clutching his poor, bruised shoulder with a grimace. “Your babysitter wants sleepytime.”

His next clue, if one could call them that, comes in the dark of early morning. It would’ve been dark at any hour, though, because Yuta’s room lacks windows.

Yuta rubs at his eyes, feeling like he’s slept for about an entire hour as he peels himself from his mattress. A faint glow from the hall spills under the door. He hears footsteps, muffled voices elsewhere in the house. Bastards probably woke him up, doing whatever nonsense they’re doing. He’s about to lie down and try to resume his uneasy slumber, but he glances down at his ward first.

Winwin’s snoring away on his side, his back to Yuta, the single thin bedsheet Yuta had offered pushed down to his waist. His weird long hair is pushed over his shoulder, exposing his nape. And there--Yuta narrows his eyes. Rubs at them again. There’s a dark _something_ that he can’t explain away as a bruise. He sits up, quiet, and leans precariously off his bunk to yank at the pull cord hanging in the center of the room. The bulb overhead flickers on; and before Winwin can roll over and scowl his way into the world of the living, he sees it. 

At the base of his neck, a small, black ring is inked into his skin. 

Then Winwin does roll over, and the tattoo disappears into the bedroll as Winwin turns his bleary, bloodied frown towards the light. Yuta’s eyes bug out. The entire right side of Winwin’s face is smeared with the stuff, like a character straight out of a slasher flick.

“What the fuck,” Yuta says. Winwin blinks up at him, and there are trails of blood crumbling from both nostrils. He must’ve started bleeding in his sleep. Yuta looks past Winwin’s shoulder, sees the massive, brown-edged stain on the bedroll, and curses again. “Jesus Christ. You’re cleaning that.” 

Winwin twists to view the mess he’s wrought. “Oh.”

Oh, indeed. Yuta considers asking him about the tattoo, but thinks better of it. It’s way too fucking early for this. 

In the sweltering boredom of the afternoon, Doyoung blesses him with an errand. 

“Apartment B56,” Doyoung tells him, nailing Winwin with an evil eye that would make lesser men cross themselves. As it is, Winwin’s cupping his chin and staring blankly out of a window. “Hasn’t paid rent for two months. Go take a look.” 

_Rent_ , by the way, is a joke. They’re not landlords. They don’t legally own jack in this District. What they do have is a monopoly on fear, and protection racketeering is the bread and butter of their business.

Which means that it got boring as all hell about four months in. If Yuta knew being in a gang would mean more housekeeping, waiting around, and knocking on doors than, like, _fighting_ , he might not have jumped at the opportunity so eagerly. Granted, it’s not as if he had any other options. 

He salutes at Doyoung’s instruction; Doyoung accepts this and turns tail. Yuta knuckles the back of Winwin’s head to get his attention. 

“You heard him.” Yuta assumes he did. Though Winwin’s window-staring was convincingly absent. “Let’s go.”

The sky today is as clear as it gets--a pale, watery blue, filtered sunlight throwing shadows over cracked asphalt and the sunken facades of the District. He avoids the slowly-drying puddles as he descends the steps out of the barbershop; they stink of petrichor and unidentifiable chemicals, waste strained through miles of city. 

Yuta cranes his neck back to stare at what lies above, though he’s long since memorized the sight. Being viscerally made aware of it is different than remembering, anyway. The District is a canyon, walled in on all sides by huge pillars of black metal and glass that jut into the sky, perforating and twisting at their distant peaks. Black stripes of superhighway and thread-like bridges cross the District what seems like a mile above. Yuta can reach out and cover them with his thumb, but he’ll never reach them. Not really. 

Closer, just a story or two up, Yuta hears a cop drone glide over his head. He can pick their muted hum out of a crowd as well as anyone, but he doesn’t pay them any mind. Not anymore. He’s long since learned that they don’t give a shit--not about him, the gangs, any of it. As long as they don’t turn their knives skyward. 

Winwin reaches the asphalt belatedly, clutching his side. Poor guy could probably use a crutch. He doesn’t feel like running back to fetch one now, though, so he shoots a sour look back at Winwin, says, “Try to keep up, man.” 

Winwin wheezes and limps after him. Yuta takes comfort in the fact that in this state, Winwin probably wouldn’t try to make a break for it. Or if he did, his injuries would probably turn him slow and clumsy. 

Not that Yuta really expects him to, really. But he feels like he should be anticipating _something_ , so. Whatever. 

Yuta scans the District and finds it strangely quiet. Their footsteps almost echo. A shopkeeper sweeping her doorstep across the way stares at them as they pass, hurries inside with broom in hand when Yuta meets her eyes. A man Yuta doesn’t recognize, carrying one weighed-down plastic bag, levels him a courteous nod as he walks past, then looks curiously at Winwin. Twice, Winwin nearly trips over his feet. Like he’d forgotten a particular crack or bump in the pavement would be there. 

Apartment B is a wedge of crumbling brick on the far eastern end of the District. He climbs the concrete stairs, grinds his teeth as he waits for Winwin to edge himself him up, fists clinging to the railings. The front door, painted the color of dried blood, squeals like its tenants hardly use it. He supposes there aren’t many left. 

The interior--pale green walls, thin carpeting--smells faintly of mold and rainwater. Yuta climbs one level up the stairwell, hears faint moans from the hallway adjacent that assure him yes, this building isn’t completely dead inside, then waits for Winwin and climbs another. He counts off the metal numbers with brimming lethargy, reaches 56. He knocks.

No answer. Disregarding the possibility that the tenant is out, Yuta knocks again and shouts, “District 127 Patrol Squad! Here to collect dues!” 

More silence, save for Winwin’s strained breaths as he pulls up behind him. Yuta sighs. 

“Open the door or I kick it down!”

“No!” comes a high, feminine voice, with all the terror of a kicked puppy. “You can’t! I--” She starts to stutter. Sometimes, Yuta really hates his job. “I _can’t!_ ”

Yuta thunks the door with the toe of his boot. “You gonna open this thing or what?”

There’s a choked-off sob, then the lock clicks and the door creaks open. The room within is dim, equally dank. The woman wears a thin off-white shift that exposes her bony shoulders. Her hair is as greasy as her skin, and there’s a wobble to her lips as she looks up at Yuta. He extends an open palm. 

“You know the drill, ma’am. Two months. Pay up.” 

“I can’t,” she repeats in a thin voice, like that means anything to Yuta. He rolls his eyes. Glances back at Winwin, who watches the exchange with a neutral, bruised-mottled gaze. 

“Listen, lady.” The woman tries to close the door, but he steps into the threshold and shoulders it open, towering over her. “This is standard. I’ve never met you before, so you must’ve kept yourself out of trouble, no? You know how things work around here. Right?”

She nods, rapid and trembling. 

“Hell, it doesn’t have to be in cash.” He casts his gaze around the apartment and alights on nothing of note. An old pot. A table, a cracked mirror that he catches his reflection in briefly before blinking away. “Just something of equivalent value.”

He doubts she has anything. He looks at her expectantly anyway, watches her features pinch and her eyes well up with tears. 

“I can’t,” she says raggedly, “I _can’t_ , I don’t have anything for you.” Her lip stiffens, and she adds, “ _I’m sorry_.” 

“Sorry isn’t gonna cut it.” Such an obvious thing to say. Like she’s anticipated it, her fists ball up, her features twisting further. Yuta sighs again. He jerks his head back at Winwin, says, “C’mon. Let’s search.”

Unexpectedly, the woman throws out her thin arms as if to stop them. “ _No!_ ” 

He stares down at her with as much mixed condescension and disbelief as he can muster. Yuta shouldn’t even have to threaten her. Instead of asking her if she’s actually stupid, he takes the nice guy route: “Ma’am, please don’t make this harder than it has to be.” 

“No!” Her face pitches to a blotchy red, contorted with desperation. “You--you _criminals!_ You won’t take her from me!” 

His impending laugh over _criminals_ pulls up short. “Her?” he echoes. 

She blanches. Takes a stuttering step back, though she doesn’t lower her arms. They shake. “I--no one! Th-there’s nothing!” 

Yuta curls a hand around the edge of the door and presses further inside, looking around the apartment. There’s a short hallway into another room, also dimly lit, but he catches something that gives him pause. The slatted side of a crib. 

Something in him sinks at the sight. He’s silent for a moment, listening under the woman’s ragged breath. There’s a whimper. A tiny burble of sound that confirms what he’s already decided. “A baby?” he intones. 

The woman drops her arms, sniffing wetly and looking as if holding back tears is causing her physical pain. “She’s two months old,” she grinds out. 

Well. Doesn’t that make a neat little heap of sense. 

Yuta works his jaw. “Where’s the father?” he asks, though he anticipates the answer. 

“ _I don’t know_. I don’t, just-- _fuck!_ ” She actually falls to her knees, clasping her hands together, and Yuta’s eyes snap down to hers in shock. “Please, I can’t feed her and--I’m all out of savings. There’s nothing. No one will lend to me. I’m already in debt, I--”

“Yeah, yeah, I don’t need your life story,” Yuta says in a detached drone. God, there’s gotta be some way he can blame Doyoung for this. “We’re not gonna take your fucking baby, quit being dramatic.” 

She blinks up at him, like she genuinely hadn’t considered this. 

“What? We’re a District gang, not human traffickers. Christ.” He drags a hand down his face, cursing the skies and his own dogshit luck for bringing him here. He can feel Winwin’s eyes on him like a physical weight. Silently judging the fuck out of him, probably. “Listen. I’ll give you a week.” 

Her mouth drops open, just a little.

“Do what you can. I don’t care. Steal shit, whatever. I’ll keep Mad Dog off your back for exactly that long.” He holds up a finger and gnaws on his lip, like he’s calculating something and not just freewheeling at the expense of his own neck. “But you’re paying interest.”

“H-how much?” 

“Two percent.” That’s a normal amount of interest, right? “First and final warning. I’ll be back.” 

He kicks at the door and lets it fall shut, heart pounding in his chest. He turns to Winwin, who remains mum. 

“We, sorry,” he mutters as he brushes past. “ _We’ll_ be back.”

Chances of Winwin coming clean in a week, he figures, are right around zero. 

Doyoung pounces on them like he’d been staking their return out. Predictably, he isn’t happy.

“Interest?” Doyoung echoes, agog. They haven’t even made it through the barbershop. Jungwoo is pretending to read an old magazine in one of the spinny chairs in the corner and definitely hanging onto every word. “What are we, a bank?”

“She just had a baby, for Christ’s sake,” says Yuta, who is privately enjoying the whole righteous anger thing. “Nobody checked on her last month. That’s on us. Today should give her a sense of urgency, no?”

“No,” Doyoung says. His arms are folded tightly across his narrow chest, and he keeps looking between Yuta and Winwin like they took turns spitting in his dinner. “No, Neko, I think you’re going soft.”

“Then you fucking do it!” Yuta bursts out, gesticulating as if it’s obvious. “All you do is sit your ass around here and bark orders, playing at some--some shitty power trip or whatever. Put some actual mileage in for once, you fucking twat.”

Doyoung’s eyebrows jump up enough Yuta worries they’ll pass his hairline. “Is that what you think?”

Dimly, Yuta starts to think that he might regret this. He says it anyway, because he might as well: “Oh, absolutely. You want Mad Dog’s job, so you’re faking it until you fucking make it--isn’t that right, Dons?” 

“How fascinating.” Doyoung’s lip goes white as he pulls it between his teeth, then releases it. “Why don’t you tell Mad Dog that, while you’re informing him of your failure to complete the most _basic_ fucking job this business requires--”

“Like you’ve ever lifted a finger to help--”

“--since my insurrection is so _obviously_ imminent? Clearly,” Doyoung says with a subtle shake of his head, eyes widened on sarcasm, “this is a matter that requires immediate attention.” 

Yuta is pretty sure he didn’t say all of that. Doyoung jabs a finger behind him, towards the door leading into the house. 

“Why don’t you go...now,” he utters. 

“Think I fucking will,” Yuta spits. He shoves past him unnecessarily, Winwin instead leaving a polite berth as he follows. Though Winwin is silent throughout all of this, he isn’t spared Doyoung’s ire-filled gaze, which makes Yuta feel only a little bit better. A microscopic bit. 

Doyoung tails the two of them into the house, through the short twist of hallways to Taeyong’s office. There’s a light under the door, so Yuta gives a cursory pair of knocks before opening. 

“Boss,” he says before even alighting on Taeyong’s presence. The man’s reclining behind his desk with his legs folded atop it, a leather notebook open in his lap and an ink-stained thumb between his teeth. He looks like he’s been thinking very hard. “You got a minute?”

The thumb pops out as Taeyong looks up at the trio. He snaps the notebook shut and sets his pen down on the desk, swings his legs off of it for good measure. “What, Neko?” 

Yuta can feel Doyoung leering behind him, which isn’t the most pleasant of sensations. “Just gotta run something by you.” He clears his throat. “Went to collect dues from a client who hadn’t paid up in two months. Said she couldn’t pay, that she had a newborn recently, no father in the picture. Told her I’d come back for it in a week, and that I expected two percent on top. That’s all.” 

Taeyong processes this impassively, steepling his fingers under his chin. He nods, slow. “We don’t normally give out loans on our protection fees, you know.”

Yuta grits his teeth. Of course he fucking knows. He’s quite literally a founding member of the gang. “She had. A kid. What was I supposed to do, force them to starve?” 

Taeyong sticks out his lower lip in contemplation, a little habit of his that makes him look strangely young. “We also have bills to pay.” He gestures past Yuta’s shoulder, where Winwin lurks silently. “More mouths to feed, recently.”

Yuta seals his lips on protests that come to mind. He won’t point out that they’re not exactly destitute, or that Taeyong was the one who proposed welcoming Winwin back in the first place. One simply doesn’t run their mouth off at Taeyong--unless their name happens to be Kim Doyoung. “Forgive my little fit of sentiment,” he says instead, in what he hopes isn’t too sarcastic of a tone. “Dons thinks I’m going soft.”

Behind him, Doyoung sniffs. Taeyong’s eyes crinkle as if he’s beginning to smile, but it’s whisked away after a second. 

“You’re not soft,” Taeyong says eventually. “Just idealistic. I’ll allow it.”

Yuta’s shoulders sink with relief. He doesn’t ask what Taeyong sees as the difference.

“But--” Yuta’s shoulders snap back to attention. “--don’t disappoint me a second time.”

Taeyong’s lip curls at him outright, and his eyes seem to flick towards Winwin. Now _that_ , Yuta knows he can’t fuck up. 

Suddenly, the memories of Winwin’s unmarked skin and that strange, circular tattoo rear their ugly heads. His gut curls with guilt, but he swallows away the accompanying flash of fear. Taeyong won’t know if he doesn’t say anything, even if his eyes seem big and all-knowing and Yuta feels very, very guilty. And if he finds out, Yuta can always play dumb.

And then Winwin will meet some horrible fate and Yuta will regret it forever, or something, for reasons he doesn’t want to examine right now. He has no logical, easily-worded motive for wanting to protect Winwin--he just knows that he does. 

Maybe it’s curiosity. Wanting to see what Winwin will do for a little bit longer. That’s probably it. 

Doyoung stalks away after that, plainly unsatisfied, and they never end up having the conversation about Doyoung’s theoretically imminent coup d’etat. Which Yuta never actually thought was imminent, and which he never actually wanted to have a conversation about--so it’s all for the better, really. He shuts the door on Taeyong’s office and lets him go back to sucking on his thumb and thinking profound, Boss-like thoughts. 

Winwin’s sullen teenager-like presence starts grating on his nerves pretty much right out of nowhere. Guy’s barely spoken since yesterday--though, if Yuta is being honest, he hasn’t exactly made much of an effort to strike up conversation, either. He rounds on Winwin the moment they’re in an empty corridor, with no approaching footsteps or sounds of life in the vicinity, gripping his shoulders and shaking him to attention. 

“You,” he starts in a quiet, tight voice, “you’re taking showers alone. Don’t let anyone see your brand isn’t there.”

Winwin’s eyes go from wide to disinterested in a heartbeat. “Okay.”

“Or your tattoo. I don’t know what that fucking thing is, but they can’t see it.”

Winwin’s brow arches a little, but he nods. Yuta supposes this is his grand reveal that he knows, and that he didn’t even bother asking. 

“Any other bodily modifications I should know about?” 

“Nope,” Winwin says. 

“Don’t lie.”

“I’m not lying,” Winwin insists. “I’m a very honest person.”

Yuta shoves him away hard enough that Winwin stumbles, scoffing. “You’re a fucking comedian, that’s what you are.” 

Nightfall brings Yuta up in the rotation for the evening sweep. He’s been going with Youngho for the past six months or so, who’s about as pleasant as company gets. Naturally, now that he’s got someone new under his thumb, he goes with Winwin. Who’s not. Not this iteration, anyway. 

Who, also, stumbles down the front steps like he’s been kicked, and follows Yuta with the same unreadable silence he’s been exercising the entire day. 

Yuta, who knows these streets like muscle memory, opts to stare at Winwin covertly rather than watch where he’s going. The neon flicker of open-late storefronts casts an interesting glow on his face, paints his bruises with purple and electric green and gold. 

“How did you _not_ get killed?” Yuta can’t help asking after Winwin stumbles, again. He catches Winwin by the arm, steadying him, and marvels at the limb’s apparent fragility. The question’s rhetorical, in that he doesn’t really expect an answer. Winwin doesn’t. 

He shrugs out of Yuta’s grip, shoots him a stiff look. Yuta huffs. Goes back to scanning the streets. 

“There’s gotta be something you want,” he ambles on, not really thinking about the words. He kicks at the grit under his feet and shoves his hands in the pockets of his jacket. The air’s humid and heavy, but cool enough that he needs it. “Something we can trade on.”

He counts another fifteen paces off along the District’s main road before Winwin answers. 

“What happened to Haechan?” 

The low hum of his voice almost shocks him. “That something you want?” A beat passes. “So tell me something first.”

“And you’ll hold up your end?” 

Yuta stops. Winwin does too, cocking his head in confusion. “Not to put on my best Dons impression, Winwin, but you have a _lot_ of fucking nerve.”

“Why?” asks Winwin, innocently perplexed.

“I’m not to be trusted?” Yuta draws close enough that his words ghost straight across Winwin’s neon-haloed face. “You’re the one who fucked off skies know where for a year. You’re not in a position to negotiate _shit_.”

Winwin blinks down at him like this is news. Then his lips curve the slight amount they’ll allow, being swollen to sausages and all. “But I...also...have something you want.”

Yes, Yuta admits privately, angrily. He shoots glances both ways, then backs off and resumes their march. 

There’s only a thin peter of District residents out at this hour, mostly hurried and keeping to their own business. They’re looking for sluggers, unlicensed troublemakers, but they won’t find any. Sweeps are hardly ever that interesting. 

“We all have something we fucking want,” Yuta grumbles out after a space, like the words themselves offend him. “That’s why we do this. We’re not _content_. We don’t _settle_.”

“Convinced yourself yet?”

He spins on Winwin, hands inching to his belt and then away just as quickly. “Don’t get smart with me. Do you want your info or not?” He throws out a hand, thumbs at his fingers like he’s counting off bills. “Give me something good. Or go ask them yourselves, I don’t care.”

“Do you think they’d mind?”

“I think Moon would kill you,” Yuta says, though this, he’s not convinced of. “C’mon. This is boring.”

Winwin doesn’t answer for long enough that Yuta sighs into refocusing on his task. 

“I want to leave Seoul.”

Yuta stops. Whirls around. Winwin pulls up with glum seriousness that tells Yuta as plainly as possible that no, he isn’t joking, not playing at some desert-dry sense of humor that would make Yuta want to punch him more than anything. Yuta opens and closes his mouth, fish-like. 

Then he laughs anyway. “Seriously? Who the fuck doesn’t? No, dude, be serious.”

“I am serious.” Winwin’s eyebrows lift, turning his gaze insistent. “That’s why I left.”

“Then why’d you come back?” he shoots back, playing along. Yuta doesn’t know if that counts as more than one piece of information. Doesn’t care. He’ll throttle it out of him. “Got lost? Changed your mind?”

Winwin shakes his head minutely. He opens his mouth as if to answer, then closes it, shakes his head again. Yuta scoffs. 

“Is that all? You’re expecting payment now?”

“Yes,” Winwin tells him primly. Yuta barks out another humorless laugh. 

“Hilarious. Mad Dog’s gonna scratch me behind the ears when I report back that one.”

“Don’t tell him,” Winwin says quickly. He clutches at Yuta’s sleeve, snagging his attention back to Winwin’s wide-eyed expression. 

“Uh, hello? What did you expect?” The missing brand and the tattoo pound helpful reminders against his prefrontal cortex, and he cringes. Those are exceptions, he tells himself. Two giant, looming exceptions--but that’s it. “He’s my boss. Your fucking boss, too.” 

“Don’t. Tell him.” Winwin’s fingers tighten on his jacket, and he pulls close enough to loom over Yuta with all of the two-three inches he has on him. Yuta’s mind blanks out for a moment. He shakes himself. 

“Why? What’s in it for me?” Christ, always back to negotiating. This timeline is hell. 

“You’ll know.” Winwin’s throat bobs in the pale glow of streetlamps. “In time.” 

Yuta elbows him off. Nods slowly, mouth dry. “Okay. Mister ambiguous. You’ve made yourself the opposite of clear.” 

They reach the end of the main road and head north on a desolate, sparsely lit side street. A drone whirs overhead. This time, the sound prickles at his senses like an unscratched itch. It makes him uneasy, even though he knows better. 

“Last summer. District 134.” Because Yuta is so generous, he clears his tacky throat and starts talking, staring out into the black shadows between streetlamps. “Some territory shit. They wanted pieces out of our north end, started reaching out to tenants and a couple merchants. Boss sent a few of us up there to clean shit up.” 

Winwin pads alongside him, silent. He really doesn’t deserve this. Yuta plunges on anyway.

“It was me, Mad Dog, Johnny, Mark, Haechan. Things went sour pretty much right away. They took a resident hostage, made us put down our weapons, then acted like they were gonna leave. Haechan chased after them before Youngho could stop him.” He swallows again, tongue thick. “He got fucking stabbed, Winwin. Right under the ribcage. He almost died.” 

The words ring hollow in the night. They sound fake. He looks back at Winwin, and feels a bitter taste rise in his throat at his blank expression. 

“Moon took care of him. He was--I don’t know. Haechan survived the initial injury, but the fever he caught almost finished him off. He’ll never be the same.” Yuta licks over his dry lips, and adds, “That’s why he took over the books.”

They round the corner, turning onto another streetful of neon-lit shopfronts. Yuta lets a slow exhale pass over his lips and fucking _dares_ Winwin to say anything.

“Is that why…” Winwin makes an indecisive hum. “The drugs?”

“ _God!_ ” If Winwin’s nose wasn’t already broken, he would’ve broken it. “You _fucking_ piece of shit. What do you think? You’re a smart guy. Or you were, before you fucking lost it.” He shakes his limbs out as if that will stop his skin from crawling, balls his fists up and releases them. “I’m not talking anymore. Go to hell.”

They finish making rounds in silence. Yuta’s heart takes about just as long to stop pounding. 

Yuta doesn’t know why he even bothered. He may as well have written and delivered Winwin a diary of the entire year since, for how obvious the rest must be. Taeil breaking. Taeyong locking himself up and blaming himself. Doyoung taking over. Jungwoo picking up slack. It all makes sense, doesn’t it? How perfectly they fell apart. 

But that’s hardly giving them enough credit. They’re still here. District 134 doesn’t have shit. He can still swear on his mother’s grave for vengeance. And if Winwin wants to flounce in and rejoin the party, then at least it isn’t over. 

Dawn breaks dreary and damp over the District with news of a new, bigger errand for them to run. Doyoung, as Taeyong’s perpetual mouthpiece, delivers it over breakfast. 

“We’re due for a supply run,” he announces to his captive, porridge-eating brothers-in-arms. “Moon intercepted a message about a BlueFin Water delivery routing about twenty minutes west.” His eyes pass over Winwin, who sits cross-legged at Yuta’s feet, bowl in lap. “Standard operation. Johnny, Yoonoh, Mark, Neko. You too,” he tacks on, seeing Jungwoo leaning against the kitchen doorway. Yuta often suspects that Jungwoo chose the most ridiculous code name possible on purpose, to laugh at how his comrades walk around saying it. “We’re not anticipating crossfire, but better safe than sorry.”

Yuta peers down at Winwin, who displays no obvious reaction. 

“Sorry to leave you out, bud,” Yuta provokes, kicking at him lightly. “Dons can take care of you, right?”

Doyoung makes a lemon-sucker of a face, but doesn’t contradict him. “I will be watching over our guest in the meantime.”

“Thank you, Dons,” Yuta says. He smiles with teeth. Doyoung merely lemon-faces harder. Yuta can only thank him, because this errand is about to make his entire day. He appreciates the impending reprieve from babysitting. He likes supply runs. And god, is he due for some action. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/winwinism).


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content warnings:** strong violence, references to murder.

The radio is one of Taeil’s more useful projects: an arcane, boxy thing he restored a while back, before Donghyuck and the drone and all of that went down. In his hands, it’s a remarkably handy source of intel. Times like these, Yuta could kiss him--if Taeil weren’t presently entombed in the basement, and if there weren’t a thousand other precluding factors at play. It’s the thought that counts. 

Backseat commander Doyoung briefs them on strategy, which is routine to the point of redundancy. The kicker, though, is the initial weapon of choice. 

“How many cross bolts do we have left?” Youngho asks, thoughtful. 

“One.” Either Doyoung already checked the weapons locker, or he’s had this key piece of inventory memorized. Yuta suspects the latter. Bolts are hard to come by--really fucking hard. “I’ll expect whoever’s handling to exercise good aim. And restraint.”

All heads--save for one--turn to Jungwoo. He shocks a little at the attention, then softens into a smile. 

“Oh, goody,” Jungwoo says brightly. “I love being important.” 

They march around noon. Yuta sweats under synthetic leather as they head west, belted up with three blades and a thick loop of hemp rope slung around his shoulder. He left Winwin in the barbershop with Doyoung with a salute and a smirk--which was somewhat unsatisfying, as Winwin didn’t seem all that jealous. Yuta half expects to find him a bloody pulp when they get back. Which, at least they won’t be able to pin it on Yuta. 

The others plod onward with all the somber gravity of soldiers heading to a front. Yuta supposes this is what it would be like, anyway. He hasn’t so much as seen a war movie. Youngho, forgoing any battle armor for a thin sleeveless top, swings a disgustingly heavy, wooden-handled axe from the leather gauntlets he wears on each hand. Jungwoo holds the crossbow like a newborn, the lone, precious bolt in a makeshift quiver at his hip. The rest of them carry knives. And their fists. Nothing like a good, solid fist to get the job done. 

A few minutes in, Minhyung lifts his little chunk of walkie-talkie up to his lips to triple-check communications. They’re a bit antsy about using radio now, with how easily Taeil uses it to snoop on other Districts; so they talk in roundabouts and codes, never attacking the subject directly.

“Forecast is clear,” Minhyung says into the mic. “In case of clouds, send a raincoat.” 

“Raincoat ready,” crackles Doyoung’s voice on the other end. Yuta can’t help his laugh. Minhyung jumps a little at the sound, sends him a look that borders on peeved. He’s always so antsy. Like he still hasn’t gotten used to these outings.

Yuta, though, can’t relate--not to Minhyung, or any of the others’ glum expressions. His blood pumps under his skin like he’s rearing on a high. This is like foreplay to him. He’s ready. Anticipating it. 

He pumps his free fist in the air and lets out an impulsive _woop_. “C’mon, men, look alive!”

Youngho’s lips twist. Minhyung just looks disgusted. 

“Dude,” Minhyung hisses, pocketing the radio, “we’re about to breach 131 territory. Be a little more subtle.”

“Because highjacking a truck in broad daylight is so subtle,” Yuta says with a look skyward. Mind, broad daylight here is no more than a bleary slice of clouds that illuminates about as well as a half-dead bulb, greyed-out shadows stretching between streetlamps and squares of sporadically-lit windows. He rolls his shoulders around in their sockets, stretching. “We’re only doing this because 131 are fucking wimps, anyway.”

“He’s got a point,” Youngho says, which is why Yuta loves him. “These parts are pretty much deserted.”

“And 131 are wimps.”

“That they are,” Youngho concedes. “We’re much better than them.”

“District’s run by a bunch of grandmas, I swear to god.” 

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Youngho cracks his gauntleted knuckles, says, “I’d feel bad about punching a grandma.” 

Jaehyun snorts. Jungwoo smiles mysteriously, the crossbow creaking in his grip. 

“This is it.” Youngho throws out a hand as they approach an intersection. They shrink against the brick facade that borders it on cue, and Youngho checks the watch that dangles from one pocket. “We’re right on time.”

The aged-asphalt streets in these parts are pinched and narrow, the obsidian towers that jut out of them threatening to crush inward. Yuta forces his eyes down so he doesn’t get dizzy. It’s strange, how an empty neighborhood can feel claustrophobic. 

The sun seems dim even further as the afternoon creeps along, smog and gathering clouds swamping up the distant atmosphere. He really hopes it doesn’t rain. 

Youngho nods for Jungwoo to get in position. Their rookie doesn’t even spare a grimace before peels himself off the wall and walks to the center of the intersection. He pries the bolt from his quiver and loads it into the crossbow. Then he lifts his head and stares out into the street, past where Yuta can see. 

“It’s coming this way, right?” he asks mildly. Youngho shoots him a thumbs up. 

Jaehyun and Minhyung cross to position themselves on the other side of the intersection. There they wait, crouched and burning with anticipation. 

Yuta burns with anticipation, anyway. He can’t speak for his comrades. He shivers and jumps in place, pops his jaw incessantly. Youngho, to his credit, doesn’t ask him to knock it off. His gaze rests coolly on the street beyond, his attention fixated on any movement. 

“You think we might’ve missed it?” Yuta hears Minhyung ask after a bit. His voice is low, but it carries like the warm, stale breeze that sweeps intermittently through the streets. Jaehyun, half silhouetted in shadow, shakes his head. 

Minutes inch by. None of the buildings around these parts are lit, but they don’t see so much as a whisper of life. It’s all dirt and crumbling, vacant apartments. Nothing 131 will bother defending, even if they’re trampling over their territory. All in the name of District 127’s good fortune.

Then there’s a sound. A distant scrape of tires. Jungwoo’s posture straightens, and he raises the crossbow. He draws the string back with arched fingers, slow as if he’s dragging it through tar, and locks it into place. His brow crinkles as he adjusts his aim, anticipating the height of his target, but his arms are steady. 

Yuta creeps up to Youngho’s side, peering down the oncoming street with raised hackles and an increasingly elevated heartbeat. He grins, presses it away. 

“It’s coming,” Youngho murmurs. He doesn’t have to say it. 

The low engine hum nears. It stops and starts, each little twitch reverberating through Yuta’s muscles. He blows out hot breath through his mouth, drops into a crouch. Like a prey animal about to pounce. Then he sees it. They all do. 

A distant block away, the white head of a semi edges around a building. Its turn is glacial, careful like the driver’s teetering on the edge of a canyon. Yuta grinds his teeth. Slowly, all eighteen wheels of it pull into view, sides turned off-white by splatters of muck. Stamped in the center is the cartoon fin of a shark, below it the bold English lettering of the company’s name. BlueFin Water. 

Yuta could go for a second woop, but he isn’t that stupid. 

The truck cruises stupidly down the street, its low headlights not enough to pick up Jungwoo and his crossbow on the other end. Blocks down here in the Dregs are long, huge stretches that will put you straight out of breath if you aren’t used to running them. They work their way around the foundations of giants, so it’s no wonder. And between them, in cramped quarters such as these, an eighteen-wheeler will have no room to turn. You back up or keep going forward.

Three-quarters of the way down, the truck slows. It grinds to a halt even closer. Jungwoo adjusts his aim and doesn’t even blink. 

There’s a click loud enough to echo, then the driver’s side door snaps open. Youngho throws up a fist. 

“ _Move!_ ”

The four of them spill around the sides of the buildings, running to flank the truck on either side. The driver pokes his dumb little visor-capped head out, marvelling at Jungwoo in the middle of the road and then at the approaching, knife weilding men, and promptly shuts himself back in the cabin with a resounding slam. Over the blood rush in Yuta’s ears, he hears his alarmed, increasingly high-pitched babble. 

“Hello? Excuse me? Excuse me, what the--!” He brings the truck’s engine gurgling back to life. Yuta can see the whites of his eyes, darting on either side. Yuta reaches the trailer first and lands a high kick on the door, hard enough to make his knee go numb. 

“Turn it off, put your hands up!” he barks. The driver’s eyes go wide, and he raises two shaky palms. “ _Off!_ ” 

He startles, but switches off the ignition. The engine goes quiet. Yuta backs off and looks pointedly at Youngho, who’s breathing hard on his heels. The product of adrenaline, not exertion. They’ll break a sweat soon enough. 

“Exit the vehicle or we force our way in, sir,” Youngho commands without inflection. He thumps the handle of his axe in the gauntleted palm of one hand. The blade shines. 

The driver sees this, and promptly screams.

“I don’t--” He scuttles out of his seat, away from the two of them, then glances behind him and catches sight of the other two, now flush against the vehicle. “Wh-what’s going on? Please d-don’t--”

“Out,” Youngho repeats, louder. He steps closer and raps his knuckles against the metal door.

“ _Don’t hurt me!_ ” The driver’s entire body trembles. He looks like a man of modest stature, fat-necked and bald-headed beneath the visor. Yuta could not feel less sorry for him.

He and Youngho exchange a look. Yuta backs off a good few yards and licks his lips.

The muscles in Youngho’s arms pop out as he grips the axe in both hands, swings it over his head in an arc--gorgeous stuff, really--and slams it home into the center of the driver’s side window. Glass explodes inward, sprays out in thick chunks on either side. Yuta has the sense to throw an elbow over his face, but Youngho grimaces into it bare-faced and bare-armed, winning scrapes along his cheekbones and neck and a nasty slice or two on each exposed limb. The driver screams like he’s trying to work his vocal chords bloody. 

Yuta darts forward. With one well-placed foot and a careful grip on the now-windowless frame--not wanting to split his hand open on a stray shard of glass, or anything--he pulls himself through the square of window and into the hot air of the cabin. Glass scrapes over his back as he goes, but it’s harmless against the leather. Or maybe he is getting scraped up, he doesn’t know. He’ll find out when it’s over. He shrugs the rope from his shoulder into his hands and lurches with a feverish grin into the driver’s space. He’s slumped against the glass-strewn dashboard, wide-eyed and shaking so much that his meaty arm almost slips out of Yuta’s grip.

“Turn around,” Yuta orders. The driver’s legs wobble. “Stand properly, you fuck.” 

He ends up manhandling him with a hiss of impatience, finally pressing his front into the dashboard. Then he seizes the driver’s sweaty hands, pulls them to the small of his back, and loops the rope around his middle, making five passes before he knots it just above his wrists. He reckons it’s tight enough to cut off his circulation and make his hands go blue. The driver gurgles helplessly, then slumps forward. 

Yuta grabs him by the neck. The way his fingers sink into the flesh is gut-churning and satisfying all at once. Yuta yanks the man’s bulk flat against his front and unsheathes a thick-bladed hunting knife with his free hand. With brimming glee, he brings it to his neck, right above where Yuta’s fingers press into the windpipe, and scrapes the flat of it over his stubble. A thin line of red materializes on either side. 

“Where’s the keys?” 

The driver’s throat bobs, and he whimpers. Yuta presses the blade down harder, welling up little beads of blood. He’s about to hiss his question again when the man darts his eyes down to his hip, below the coils of rope. Yuta follows his gaze and alights on a bulge in one pocket. Holding the knife steady, he roots into the pocket and produces a well-populated keyring. 

He fingers through the lot of them before the man’s eyes, watches him heave and gasp, the struggle already gone out of him. 

“That one,” he sputters out when Yuta reaches a certain nondescript key. “Th-that’s for the trailer.” 

Yuta huffs. He flips through the rest, and the driver points out the key to the ignition. Then he twists and tosses it through the shattered window, where Youngho waits. 

“The grey one with 6719 on it,” he calls, and Youngho catches it with a leather fist. He nods, and heads for the back of the truck. On the other side, Jaehyun and Minhyung follow. 

Yuta almost feels bad for them. Missing out on the action, and all. 

In the intersection beyond, Jungwoo holds the crossbow steady. Yuta respects the hustle. Though he stands a good fifteen or so yards away, Yuta doesn’t doubt Jungwoo could nail him in the forehead if he decided to pull the trigger.

Yuta sincerely hopes he doesn’t. They’ve had their differences in the past, but that would just be rude. 

There’s a loud creak from the back of the truck as Youngho unlocks the latch and the doors are noisily pried open. This time, it’s Jaehyun who lets out a woop. 

“Cargo looking good,” Youngho calls. Yuta whistles happily, loud enough to make the driver flinch. At this, an idea pops into Yuta’s head. 

“Where you headed, big boy?” He reduces a little of the blade’s pressure to let him answer. His chin wobbles, and his eyes dart. 

“What?” he rasps. Coughs, then flinches at the pain it must whet on his neck. 

“Your destination, bumfucker. Who ordered this shit?” 

The driver’s eyes skitter up to his, then away. “D-district 134. Just a few blocks n-north.” 

Yuta frowns. Doyoung hadn’t told them that. Maybe he didn’t know. He almost presses the blade back into the man’s throat out of spite, but holds it at bay for another moment. “Did you get a name?” 

“N-no--I don’t know. There’s an--” He inches his neck back, almost nodding towards the opposite side of the cabin, and Yuta narrows his eyes. “An order slip. M-might be on that.” 

Yuta pauses. On the other end of the truck, the hatch slams shut. With a modest pang of regret, he withdraws the knife entirely and, before the driver can sag in relief, shoves him into the smattering of glass on the dashboard. Yuta crunches over to the other side of the cabin and starts scanning for something resembling an order slip. 

“In the file,” the driver gasps, and Yuta snatches a brown folder tucked into a compartment along the passenger seat door. It’s the topmost thing inside. A printed order slip, made out to--he squints, brings the sheet closer to his eyes. Lim Junghoon. 

Yuta snaps the folder shut. “I’m taking this,” he announces unnecessarily. The driver groans. 

“P-please don’t.”

Yuta’s laugh catches him off guard. “We’re taking this whole fucking truck, you moron. You can tell the fuckfaces who sent you here to consider teaching self-defense.”

The driver’s eyes widen, and he wriggles enough to face Yuta with his front still pressed against the dashboard. “You’re not gonna m-mu--” His blood-spotted throat works furiously. “ _Murder_ me?” 

Yuta rolls his eyes. He sheathes his blade with a modest twinge of regret, stretches his arms behind him until they bend to a satisfying crack, and tells him, “Fuck off, no. It’s hardly fun if you don’t put up a fight.”

Jaehyun drives, taking Jungwoo as passenger. The remaining three walk, hooting and high-fiving each other and--well. That’s mostly Yuta. Minhyung, on the other hand, comes out looking a little grey and mostly like he’d shit himself. 

They leave the driver a shivering mess on the street. They untied him, because wouldn’t that be a waste of rope, but Yuta gets a feeling he won’t be tailing them after the swift, bone-cracking kick Youngho landed on one of his shins. Let him crawl back to his people. Blubber about filthy Dregs gangsters and his lack of security. Yuta only hopes he sounds badass in the man’s telling of it.

Once they’re back in the heart of District 127, Yuta pulls out the folder he tucked under his arm and flips it open to view the order slip. 

“Six dozen cases,” he reads off. “Good for us--but fuck, man, where’d 134 get this kind of money?”

Youngho frowns and falls into step with Yuta, peering at the slip. “District 134?”

“Oh, right. Driver said that’s where he was headed.” The address printed in the middle of it confirms as much. He ghosts a thumb over the name at the top, and says, “Know a guy named Lim Junghoon?”

“I do not,” Youngho says. He takes the folder out of Yuta’s hands and narrows his eyes at it as if doing so will reveal its secrets. “Could be a fake name.”

“Most likely,” Yuta sighs. The others have gone tense at the mention of 134, enough that Yuta almost regrets bringing it up. “It brings me great joy to know we just fucked over our lovely northern neighbors.”

Youngho shoots him a wry glance. “You _want_ our lovely northern neighbors pissed off, Neko?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely,” Yuta assures him. “We’re not even close to even, but this is a start.”

Yuta pokes his heads through doorways and stalks through a handful of corridors before he finds Winwin in the study, sitting by the window unscathed--save for his old scrapes and bruises--and conspicuously alone. His eyes are tired when he turns them on Yuta, and they only brighten a fraction upon noting his presence.

“Oh, you’re back,” Winwin says dully. 

“Where’s Dons?”

“He’s with Mad Dog. Something about--” Winwin puckers his swollen lips, thinking, then shakes his head. “I dunno.”

“He just left you here?” Yuta enters the room, pulls out one of the chairs from the roundtable, then thinks better of it. He’s still bouncing on his heels with adrenaline. 

“It’s only been a few minutes.” Winwin props his elbows on the table and looks up at him with knuckles pressed along his jaw, the picture of innocence. “How’d it go?”

Yuta ignores the question. “I’m surprised he didn’t cream your ass the second you two were alone.”

“It was great,” Winwin drolls. “We talked about our crushes and braided each other’s hair.”

Yuta snorts despite himself. He crosses his arms over his chest, throws a glance out the battered screen window. He hears voices, Jaehyun conversing with Youngho as he and Jungwoo make it back from the warehouse. “They in Mad Dog’s office?”

“I guess? Dons seemed pretty pissed.” 

“Must be something important.” If it takes priority over making Winwin’s life miserable, that is. 

“Must be. You’re bleeding.”

Yuta starts down at him as Winwin taps one finger against his left temple. He mirrors the motion, prodding his hairline gingerly, and the pads of his fingers come away wet with crimson. He hadn’t even noticed. Winwin’s mouth twitches. 

“Want me to clean them for you?”

Yuta blinks. He looks between his fingers and Winwin’s veiled expression, and a part of him jeers at his own hesitation. He manages a tart “No thanks,” but its lateness is a bit telling. 

Winwin’s lips curve into a ghost of a smile. He doesn’t speak in the ensuing minutes as Yuta strips out of his leather and swabs at his wounds against a little handheld mirror, wincing into the bit of antiseptic he applies along his temple, cheekbones, the back of his neck. Yuta can almost pretend he isn’t there. 

“Well?” Yuta asks when he snags Doyoung, conveniently just as he’s storming out of Taeyong’s office towards--somewhere. “Why’d you leave Winwin alone, the hell’s going on?”

Doyoung’s gaze is hot with fury when it bores down on Yuta, then on Winwin at his heels. He softens on a low exhale, works his jaw before answering. “It’s confidential,” he hisses, and moves to push past the two of them. Yuta steps in front of him before he can, bracing a hand against the corridor wall. 

“Woah, woah. You can’t be serious. Why’s everything confidential nowadays?” Doyoung reignites at his words, shoulders drawing up and lips going thin. “I’m fucking sick of secrets. I wanna be in the know.” 

Doyoung casts a glance at Winwin. “Not in front of _him_.” 

Yuta looks back at his ward, feeling immensely weary, then steps closer to Doyoung. “What’s he gonna do, huh?” he says quietly. He ducks his head, catching Doyoung’s eyes. “You left him in the study all by himself. Quit claiming the high ground.” 

Doyoung waffles for another overextended moment. Yuta’s about to piss off altogether when Doyoung lets out a fatigued sigh. 

“You,” he says, nodding towards Winwin. “Go do some dishes or something.” When Winwin doesn’t immediately flee for the kitchen, Doyoung repeats it in a considerably less polite, staccato snap. At this, Winwin pads away, and the creaking hop-step of his limp fades slowly into the background. 

Once they’re alone, Doyoung turns his eyes on Yuta. 

“The Drillhouse,” he begins, words dripping with reluctance. “They’re skimping on dues.”

Yuta’s brow furrows. He straightens, no longer propping himself up on the wall. “How do you figure?” 

“This is the third month in a row they’ve reported record low income. I had Haechan check it for me--five years, and they’ve never even come close. Nothing has changed. They’re underreporting.” 

Yuta’s mind works over Doyoung’s low, tight whisper as if treading molasses. “The Drillhouse? Nah, they’re chill. They wouldn’t pull something like that.”

Doyoung crooks an eyebrow. “The numbers say otherwise.”

“Every month is different, Dons, why jump to conclusions?”

Doyoung’s mouth twists, and he jabs fingers into Yuta’s collar. “Listen to me. Do not make me relive my conversation with Mad Dog. This is a statistical aberration that exists only on paper. Every single person I’ve talked to has witnessed a normal flow of patrons--I’ve seen it with my own eyes. They’re sitting on cash.” 

“So, what,” Yuta tries, grasping at sense, “we go in and audit their shit?” 

“That’s exactly what we do,” Doyoung affirms. “And we find out exactly what they’re hiding.” 

Yuta’s mind blanks. He can’t picture walking in there and treating them like traitors. “Just like that? They’re Mad Dog’s men. Our men. They wouldn’t--”

“They’re not our men,” Doyoung enunciates. “They’re mercenaries. Any fondness they might have for our leader is second to their own self interest. They’d be fools if it wasn’t.” 

“Oh, no wonder you and Mad Dog get along so well--”

“I’m his second.” Doyoung arches an eyebrow to an angle that could cut, and says, “It’s my job to tell him things he doesn’t want to hear. You, on the other hand, are a foot soldier. You’d do well to remember that. Now, please excuse me for not wanting to let this ship sink in the name of sentiment.” 

The Drillhouse is somewhat of a historic venue in District 127. It’s been so named since before Taeil was a gleam in his mother’s eye. Kingdoms have risen and fallen before its bleary, drunken eyes, and through it all the Drillhouse has peddled its toxic swills and gastronomically unsound finger foods to District bottom feeders with unerring consistency and a strange sort of pride. It was the Drillhouse when the 127 was the 126, for crying out loud. But territories change. Loyalties shift. The need to go out and get stupid drunk doesn’t, so it kind of makes sense. 

It’s also the same Drillhouse where Taeyong who became Mad Dog became Boss, but that’s a story for another time. 

Yuta gnaws on this while he overlooks the crew unloading the trailer full of loot. Sweat gathers on their necks as they stack the back-breaking heft of each jug onto forklifts and steer them into musty, poorly-lit warehouse, among the other heaps of supplies and hoarded goods the Patrol Squad hold under their dominion. Yuta doesn’t envy them. He may be a foot soldier, but at least he’s not a grunt. Youngho and Jaehyun are among them, commandeering the men not from Taeyong’s inner circle, but who work for him nonetheless. Minjun from the laundromat. Hyunwoo, the son of a grocer. A couple others. 

_Mercenaries_ , Doyoung’s voice whispers in the back of his head. Yuta fights the urge to roll his eyes, again. They’re not just paid off. They’re sworn. Does a man’s word mean nothing these days? 

Yuta’s primary task is to spot their progress and stand sentry on one side of the warehouse door; and his folded arms and prominently displayed belt of knives are doing a bangup job of it, he thinks. Winwin lurks just at his elbow, less armed and somewhat less intimidating for it--not armed at all, in fact, except for the ones attached to his body. He wears a cloth mask over the lower half of his face and has one of Yuta’s hoodies pulled over his head, hair spilling out the sides. It’s a bit of a shit disguise, but Doyoung insisted, even though that ship has probably sailed. Anything that would spell instability, in his eyes, ought to be kept under wraps. 

Jungwoo stands sentry on the opposite side, accompanied by Doyoung, who stands in concert with Sungmin, Hyunwoo’s greying father and main bidder for their latest acquisition. He strokes the thin strip of beard sprouting from his chin as he regards the proceedings of forklifts full of water. Clean, sparkling, turned blue by their plastic containers, BlueFin’s logo grooved into the surface of each jug. As good as liquid gold. 

“Dons is sharp,” says Winwin, and Yuta _doesn’t_ jump, but turns on him with eyebrows calmly fleeing to his hairline. 

“And to what do I owe that observation?” Yuta wonders in a tight voice. He claps his hands on his thighs, away from his blades, and resumes his watch. 

“If what he says is true, they’re definitely ripping us off. You’re blinded by idealism.”

Yuta’s mouth pops open. He doesn’t turn to Winwin again, but his thoughts trip over themselves mid-stride. Where to _start_ unpacking that. “ _Us_ ,” he decides, works well enough. 

“Mad Dog said I could come back. He called me an asset.”

“Fair,” Yuta admits. He grinds his teeth, and says, “So, you overheard?”

He glances peripherally at Winwin, enough to catch the mirth crinkling his eyes as he says, “I did. There weren’t any dishes, so I came back. You seemed pretty preoccupied, though.”

 _Bullshit_. “When Mad Dog gives me the go-ahead to break your nose again, you won’t be so smug.”

“He won’t, and you’d never,” Winwin says smugly. And Yuta rolls his eyes as if that will make him any less right--on the latter point, anyway. 

“Blinded by idealism,” he mutters. Shakes his head. “What, did you steal that line from Mad Dog?”

“No, he’s just right.” 

Yuta tears his eyes from the near-empty trailer to face him head-on. Winwin’s features are obscured by the hoodie and the shadows of the night-dark District streets, but his eyes reflect the scant light there is in a way that glitters. “And what, pray tell, do you have to back up that thesis?”

“Everything.” He sounds so sure. His eyes are bottomless, unwavering, and Yuta shifts with sudden discomfort. “Because I know you.”

A laugh bubbles out of him. “Uh, a year ago, maybe.”

“No. You’re about the same.” Yuta ogles at him in growing offense as Winwin adds, “The others, I’m not so sure.” His eyes slide past Yuta, and Yuta follows them to Jungwoo. He looks a bit blithe for the effective position of guarding the gang’s shit; at his side, Doyoung and the merchant have their heads lowered in conversation. “You trust him too much.”

Yuta finds himself caught between laughing and hitting him upside the head. “Coming from you? That’s rich. Fucking loaded, Winwin.”

“How’d he get in? Did you even run a background check?” Winwin steps close enough that the front of his hoodie brushes Yuta’s shoulder. “He could be a spy. Some other gang’s plant.” 

Yuta elbows him off. “Not everyone’s obsessed with going undercover or whatever the fuck, you psycho. He was the son of a butcher, back in the 121. Parents got murdered. He came to us.” He resists the urge to raise his voice and prays that Jungwoo isn’t listening very closely. “He’s a good asset. Loyal.”

Winwin lifts his chin. “Is that such a hard impression to give off?”

“Why else would he--look. Your mind games are shit, everything you say that isn’t a full, uncut confession of your activities for the past year is shit. I’m not listening.” After a beat, he rounds on Winwin again and lands a threatening poke to his clothed collarbone. “And you’re in deep shit for eavesdropping, by the way, so do look forward to that.”

“I will,” Winwin assures him. There isn’t a trace of fear in him, only faint amusement. Yuta cocks his head, stares, then turns to follow Youngho’s call into the warehouse, pulling Winwin after him with a fist around his forearm. 

So what if Winwin doesn’t think he’s hard, or whatever. He tells himself this as Doyoung and Sungmin haggle over the grocer’s cut of the cases, backed by industrial lights that flicker and hum like insects. No one thinks someone’s _hard_ after listening to them fart in their sleep, or having them drunk-cry on their shoulder, or watching them tremble over scary stories told by flashlight. They had four years enough of that. But Yuta can show him not-idealistic. He can do jaded and skeptical and sharp, like Doyoung. He doesn’t know why Winwin even cares. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've read this far, I hope you have an excellent day. Also, follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/winwinism).


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